Bar·ber fish. Zool. See Surgeon fish.

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 doc·tor n.
 1. A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge; a learned man. [Obs.]
    One of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Macciavel.   -- Bacon.
 2. An academical title, originally meaning a man so well versed in his department as to be qualified to teach it.  Hence: One who has taken the highest degree conferred by a university or college, or has received a diploma of the highest degree; as, a doctor of divinity, of law, of medicine, of music, or of philosophy. Such diplomas may confer an honorary title only.
 3. One duly licensed to practice medicine; a member of the medical profession; a physician.
 By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
 Will seize the doctor too.   -- Shak.
 4. Any mechanical contrivance intended to remedy a difficulty or serve some purpose in an exigency; as, the doctor of a calico-printing machine, which is a knife to remove superfluous coloring matter; the doctor, or auxiliary engine, called also donkey engine.
 5. Zool. The friar skate. [Prov. Eng.]
 Doctors' Commons. See under Commons.
 Doctor's stuff, physic, medicine. --G. Eliot.
 Doctor fish Zool.,  any fish of the genus Acanthurus; the surgeon fish; -- so called from a sharp lancetlike spine on each side of the tail. Also called barber fish. See Surgeon fish.

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